


Burden

by piratemistress



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/M, Outdoor Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-17
Updated: 2006-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-11 10:48:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4432676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piratemistress/pseuds/piratemistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elliot/Olivia. An argument over a case heats up and becomes personal, and Olivia won’t take Elliot’s stony silence for an answer. Set season 6, post- “Doubt” (in which a young woman claims to be raped by a professor, Elliot and Olivia disagree on the guilt or innocence of the accused, and it comes out that Elliot’s wife has left him, and he is falsely accused of groping the victim when he takes her home).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burden

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: In the criminal justice system, crimes of copyright infringement are considered especially heinous. Sometimes authors are prosecuted for stealing characters that don’t belong to them. This one isn’t making any money off of them. This is her story.

“Elliot!”

Olivia slammed her palm against the door that was swinging shut behind him, as he strode out, quickly and confidently. She gritted her teeth. There was no dealing with him when he was like this.

“Elliot, wait!”

He was climbing the steps, two at a time, without looking back at her. She jogged up them as fast as she could, still unable to catch him.

Another door. The emergency exit. The grating sound of the metal push bar echoed in the stairwell as sunlight flooded in and Elliot walked out onto the roof. Olivia was not far behind, though she was out of breath, and a few seconds later the push bar screamed again as Olivia hit it, forcefully, frustrated.

He walked to the edge of the roof. Maddeningly calm of gait, his broad shoulders swathed in the blue shirt she’d come to think of as his _rip off_ shirt, as in the one she often found herself thinking about unbuttoning... it was loose around his chest but tight where it disappeared around his lean hips, held fast by his brown leather belt.

But he couldn’t run any more, she thought as the door swung closed behind her. He was on the goddamn roof. If he wanted to avoid talking to her so bad, he’d have to jump.

“Elliot, enough,” she called, walking toward him. He crossed his arms across the broad expanse of his chest, staring out at the surrounding buildings.

“What do you want me to say,” he muttered, looking in her direction for a brief moment. Not at her. It was not a question.

“I just want you to _listen_.”

“Guess I don’t really have a choice, unless I sprout some wings.”

“Look...” She drew up to stand next to him, facing the sky and street. “I know I made a blanket statement. I’m sorry. I didn’t _mean_ you.”

“Oh, that’s supposed to make all the difference, right? If I said to a vic, ‘I think women are generally bitches, but not you,’ I’d get my ass handed to me.”

“I was upset about the verdict. I’m still upset about the _verdict_. That piece of trash got away with rape.”

“Well, the jury seemed to think he was innocent.”

Olivia stared at him. He turned to look at her, and his jaw set, a muscle jumping in his cheek. “He got to you,” she concluded, reading his eyes expertly. “Somehow he got you on his side.”

“We’re not supposed to be on anyone’s side, Liv. We investigate. That’s our job.”

“You’re wrong. We’re supposed to be on the victim’s side.”

“And what if the victim’s not always right, huh?” Elliot turned to face her, his voice getting deadly quiet. “ _You_ know how it is. A little girl, a kid, no question there. But this woman... Liv, if you’d have seen the way she was lookin’ at me, all big-eyed and helpless-“

“Are you _trying_ to blame her for something inappropriate? She’s a rape victim!”

“ _Alleged_ rape victim.”

“She knew exactly what she was doing.” Elliot’s eyes flashed blue, the same blue as the sky behind them, the blue of that damned shirt... “A man knows when he’s being seduced.”

“And that gives him the right to rape her?”

“No, it gives him a fucking hard-on, and I’m pretty damn sure she’d know what to do with it.”

“So because she was giving you looks, she’s lying about being raped.”

“It sure does make me awfully suspicious, yeah. She _used_ my support to make a false allegation against me. She _uses_ people. Maybe she used her professor the same way.”

Olivia sighed, understanding his anger better, now. He was feeling abused by women, these days, given what had happened. Naturally he wouldn’t deal with it well. He would lock it inside, easy as a flick of his wrist to snap on cuffs. Maybe it was Kathy he was most angry at. Still... “Elliot, you can’t use her looking at you as evidence.”

He chuckled wryly, not smiling. “Sure wish I could.”

“Lots of women look at you.”

“Not like _that_.”

“Yes, they do. You just don’t see it.”

He turned his face toward her, again, furrowing his brows, looking her up and down. “And you do?”

“Do what?” she answered numbly, feeling her breath catch as his gaze seemed to heat her face.

“See it.” He cocked his head, all business.

“Of course I see it. Because I’m your partner, and I’m with you all the time.”

“So you think it’s perfectly _natural_ for a woman to practically eat me with her eyes.”

“Why the hell not,” she countered, fast. Too fast. His eyes lit on hers. Blazed.

He took a step closer. Olivia, a woman unafraid to interrogate the worst the city had to offer, unafraid to shove a gun in someone’s face, unafraid to use her height or her voice or anything she had to her advantage, was suddenly dwarfed. And intimidated. But that was what he wanted. He was pushing her, playing with her, just like a perp. When he spoke, his voice was an iron whisper. “Because _you_ do, too... isn’t that right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she managed, feeling her pulse speed up as her senses registered he was close enough to smell his aftershave.

“The hell you don’t. Talk about looks...” Elliot lifted a brow and scanned her face, up and down. “I’ve seen this one before, too. Doe in headlights. Just like when I told you Kathy left me.”

Olivia swallowed, still too unsettled by his nearness to think clearly. He was inches away. “I meant women in general.”

“Well, today’s your day for blanket statements, isn’t it? First all men in general are bastards, now all women, in general... uh, what would you call it?”

_Asshole_ , she thought. _Men in general are assholes_. And any woman, being alive and healthy, would probably trade life and limb to strip down a man like Elliot and get an eyeful of all those muscles. Just like his wife probably did, every night... the nights when he made it home, that is. She sighed. This wasn’t about the verdict.

“Elliot... it’s not fair for you take out your anger at your wife on _me_. Or the vic.”

“Why not?” Elliot whispered, still dangerously close. “She thought it was your fault.”

“Who did? The vic?”

“No.” He smiled a little, a bitter, sad, smile. “My wife.”

Olivia folded her arms across her chest... another barrier between them, since he wasn’t backing off and neither was she. “Really.”

“Yup. Some of those long nights we were on a stakeout, or crunched for time to find evidence, she started to think I was sleeping with you. Because short of that, in her mind, nothing could have kept me away from her.”

“Jesus,” Olivia breathed. “Well, that’s absurd. Did you tell her it wasn’t true?”

He laughed, sourly, and turned away, finally, just a little, their bodies at a right angle. “Course I did.”

“And?”

“She didn’t believe me.”

Olivia couldn’t help it. She felt sorry for him. She lifted a hand to rest it on his shoulder, shivering inwardly at the steely hardness of it. “I’m sorry.”

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, the not-amused smirk still on his lips. “Are you? You didn’t look sorry when I told you she’d left me.”

“I was _surprised_. You seemed so happy.”

“I was. She wasn’t.”

It was quiet for a long moment up on the roof, with only the occasional distant siren or car horn from below to remind them they weren’t alone in the world. Eventually he spoke again, shaking his head slowly.

“You know the irony of it, Liv? I break my back on this job, go home to her and the kids, and she thinks I’m fucking my partner. I drive this victim home, practically carry her up the stairs, and she accuses me of copping a feel in the process. Why bother? You know? Why bother being a good man who plays by the rules?”

“It’s who you are, Elliot,” she responded, confidently.

“Maybe.” His eyes moved over the surrounding buildings, before swinging around to rest on her face. “Maybe not.”

Olivia felt her cheeks heat at the tone of his last remark, unsure why it had affected her so. She didn’t know what he meant. Did she? “You _are_.”

“Do you want me to be?” he asked, turning toward her again, bringing them perilously close. “Or do you want me be an asshole like you said before, ‘just another asshole who got away with it’.”

“Of course, I...” and her words died on her lips as she realized he was standing too close on purpose, leaning in on purpose. His words a dare. This was wrong, she reminded herself. He’s not himself, with everything that’s been going on. When she swallowed, this time, her throat felt far too dry. “Even good men make mistakes once in a while.”

“You saying you want me to make a mistake?”

“Inevitable,” she whispered, shocked to hear how throaty her voice had become. “We all make mistakes.”

“Even you, Liv?” he whispered back, inches from her lips.

“Definitely,” she replied, and raised her chin a little, stopping just short of kissing him. They were frozen there for what seemed like an eternity, as her heart pounded. She saw his lashes flutter closed, and then he did the unthinkable. He kissed her. On the mouth.

The kiss began gently but didn’t stay that way for long, because it couldn’t. Not after several long years of bridled lust and furtive glances. Windows steamed up on a stakeout just from their silent breathing. In a few seconds he was shoving his fingers through her silky hair, ruining the neatness of her bob, pressing her closer to him so he could ease her lips open with his tongue and then sweep inside, eliciting a whimper from her, and then his other arm came around her waist and dragged her against him with a sharp pull, and she moaned into his mouth.

His mouth abruptly left hers to glide, hotly, along her jaw and down her neck, and when she felt the slight nick of his teeth, she gasped. _Elliot_. He was kissing her, touching her... she didn’t realize she’d said his name aloud until he stopped and looked at her, his head still tilted sideways from nuzzling her neck.

“Yeah?” he said in reply, his lids rising halfway to reveal smoldering blue irises.

“Yeah,” she affirmed, reaching up to draw him back to her. He captured her lips again, and she leaned up to rest her elbows on his shoulders. She loved the feeling of being enfolded in his arms... of all the men she’d known, all the men she could take in a fight, even, Elliot was the only one who made her feel safe.

The kiss was greedy and hungry, and Elliot leaned his head first to one side, then the other, as he tasted every corner of her mouth.

Too much. It was too much, the heat and strength and smell of him, as he kissed her for all she was worth. Her hands came off his shoulders to smooth his shirt against his chest, and then one fell of its own accord down between them, feeling a bulge in his pocket... his wallet? No, he wasn’t turned that way, it wasn’t his wallet or his gun, it was bigger and hotter and harder... she raked her nails lightly across it, and his lips jerked away from hers as he hissed, “ ‘ _Livia_...”

“Yeah?” she responded, playfully, trailing her nails up and down where his slacks were stretched tight opposite her hips.

“Yeah,” he nearly growled, grinding his hips into her hand, which she turned so her palm was facing him, and he groaned a little as he settled his lips against hers, again.

Hot desire was rushing through her body at an alarming rate as he opened his mouth against hers, and she answered in kind... they were losing it, losing control already, and they were standing on the roof of the building where they worked...

“El,” she forced out, turning her head a little to the side. “We can’t do this here.”

“Why, what are we doing?” His voice was deep and soft, and she would have thought him in complete control were it not for the pulse she felt racing against the palm she held up to lay against his chest.

“Uh, breaking procedure, for starters,” she whispered against his cheek. “Then, abusing clocked time, then, fraternizing with a colleague, then...”

“None of that’s a crime.”

His blood was up, and it would be hard to get through to him. She tried again. “Someone could come out that door any second.”

“Adds to the excitement, doesn’t it?” He reached behind her to haul her against him, looking searchingly into her face. “You got your cuffs?”

Her heart skipped a beat, and her lips parted as his eyes seemed to burn right through her. “My c-cuffs?” she choked out, her mind racing.

He grinned at her, only for a second, and she thought to herself it was the first time he’d smiled all day. He tossed his head in the direction of the exit. “For the door. Only locks from the inside, but the handle can be chained to that metal ring.”

She turned to look, and then turned back, frowning at him. “How do you notice this stuff?”

“Let’s say I have an active imagination.”

She withdrew her handcuffs from the back of her belt, pressing them into his palm. “It’s not going to stop anyone for long.”

“We don’t need ‘long’. We just need a minute to get dressed.” He walked around her and headed for the door.

She felt her lungs constrict at the idea, and she forced herself to take a deep breath. When he turned to walk back after clapping the cuffs around the door’s handle and an iron ring that protruded on the jamb, she marveled at how calm his walk was. How straight, how sure. Would he walk like that naked, she wondered? Was that how he walked toward a woman lying in his bed... “They’ll suspect we were up to something if they find the door chained with my cuffs.”

He reached her and slid his hands around her sides, and they were burning hot, even through the fabric of her shirt. “They can suspect all they want – but they won’t be able to prove it. Burden of proof’s a bitch, ain’t it?”

He pulled on her waist and turned her around, steering around the side, blocked from the view of the door. He stopped in front of the brick wall of the stairwell, and gently pushed her back against it.

“What are we doing, Elliot,” she wondered as she felt the rough geometry of the brick against her back.

“Anything we want. Why not? Everyone else does.” He leaned in and began to undo the buttons of her plain blouse, working his way up from the bottom. He parted it when he was finished, and stroked the backs of his fingers down her exposed stomach. She shuddered, as he drew his fingers back up toward her breast. “Copping a feel.” He cupped her silk-clad breast in his palm, weighing it in his hand. “Followed by the other things I was falsely accused of. Since my wife thinks I did them, anyway... why shouldn’t I?”

Her head fell back against the brick as he fastened his mouth on her neck, again. It had been as good as saying, _I’m going to fuck you, right here_ , which she knew he wouldn’t say, it just wasn’t him. But he would think it, and act on it, and he was going to get them into so much trouble. It was a little scary, she thought as she felt his fingers in the middle of her back, then on her bra clasp, then flicking it open. _I must be out of my mind_ , she concluded as he slid his palms over her bare breasts, and she arched up against him with a soft cry. It had been so long. So long since she’d had a man touch her like this, so long that she’d been daring to imagine circumstances would combine to throw Elliot into her arms.

She wedged her wrists between his forearms and began to claw at the buttons of his shirt, reminding herself to be careful. _Don’t rip them, you want him to wear this shirt again, right_? Just not when he was touching her like this... she opened it and her fingertips encountered the soft cotton of his undershirt, the crisp curling hairs at the top. Her mouth was completely dry. She knew he’d be like this, all hard muscle and raw masculinity, but she wasn’t prepared... wasn’t prepared to want him this much...

Her jeans were sliding over her bottom, around her hips and down. When had he unzipped them? She hadn’t noticed, she’d been busy crumpling the hem of his beater in her fingers and sticking them under it to glide over the ridges of his abdomen and squeeze the hard flesh around his ribs and chest. She tasted him, the flat of her tongue pressed against his upper chest in a brief kiss, and he’d made a sound low in his throat and grabbed her around the waist to lift her up, back against the wall.

There was a pause, while both of them breathed hard. Elliot glanced down, seeing the white silk panties that matched her bra, and then he looked back up at her face. “Nice,” was all he said, before he lifted her even more, balancing her on his thigh, trailing a long, slender finger over her panties, down between her thighs, over the moist spot she knew must be growing wetter every second. “Very nice,” he breathed into her ear as he leaned forward, closing his eyes, seeming to lose himself in what he was doing. When he nudged the edge aside to slip his fingers underneath, and she felt the hot touch of his fingertips right in the center of her, she gasped aloud and bent an arm around his neck to hang on to.

“Oh, my God, Ell...” Her words broke off in a sigh he slid a finger into her, gently, curling it toward the front, as though he were beckoning... and with his other hand he was undoing his belt and opening his slacks, and she was so lost to the touch and feel of him, so lost.

His hand withdrew. She was more than ready, and she knew he could tell. She’d been ready for a damned long time. His trousers fell in a pile with a soft swish, and they pooled around his ankles. Oh God... he was going to... she felt her thighs spread wider by themselves, as though her body had a mind of its own when it came to him.

Dark briefs were soon lowered. She was standing again while he did so, and then he had her again against the wall, but this time he was pressing into her and he was so searing hot and velvety and then he was _in_ her... Elliot was inside her, and she thought she might die from the pleasure and the terror of it, and she hung onto his shoulders for dear life as he thrust slow, and deep.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Liv,” he was muttering into her ear. “Can’t believe I... we...”

“I know,” she whispered back, moving to meet him urgently. “I know.”

“Took so long, but I couldn’t... I thought I...”

“Shhh,” she said, stroking the back of his damp neck with her fingers. He ground into her, deeply, repeatedly, and she was less and less able to think, to focus, with each thrust... she _was_ losing her mind, this must be what was meant by ‘mindless’ fucking. She ground down, squeezing him as much as she could, wanting him to know how much she wanted him, needed him... His breathing was deep and labored, but his strokes were confident and accurate, right where she wanted him. She didn’t know if she was riding him or he was taking her, a little of both, out there on the roof with the cool breeze blowing around them.

“I want you to come,” he whispered softly, so softly she could feel the movements of his lips against her earlobe more than she could hear what he said. “I want to make you come, like this. Tell me.”

She told him by dragging one of his hands down to where they joined and pressing his fingers against her again, and he took the cue and stroked her with the pad of his thumb, and she cried out and bore down harder against him, as he matched the rhythm of his hips and hand. She began to buck more frantically as he set her on fire with his rubbing, and could tell he was getting wilder, too, as his aim was less sure and he got faster, his breath grating harshly against her ear and neck.

“Liv,” he said through clenched teeth. A warning. A plea.

“Yes, I’m here,” she gasped out. “Yes... _oh_ , yes, Elliot... yes, yes...” A wordless cry, then, as the flames erupted and she shuddered against his hand, feeling herself clenching and unclenching around him as he was buried in her. He began to shake, then, too, and slammed deep into her one final time as he groaned his release into her neck. A long, drawn-out groan, from between gritted teeth, like a sound she’d heard him make when he lifted something heavy, something that weighed a ton... or when he’d finally put it down.

He set her on her feet a moment later, and she fell against him, against the solid rock wall of his chest. Her lips were open against his shoulder as she struggled to draw breath, pleasure still shooting through her insides. The enormity of what they had done was starting to weigh upon them. There was no eye contact as they breathed in silence.

Not until they heard the door rattle.

“Hey, you two out here?” Munsch.

Elliot leaned down and pulled up his pants. “Get dressed,” he whispered to Olivia.

She stared for a few seconds, still in a passionate stupor, before glancing around for her jeans.

“Hey! Nobody better be getting murdered out there, you were seen tear-assing out of the office like some bad shit was going down,” Munsch called.

“We’re fine,” Elliot called back. “Be down in a minute.”

“Olivia, you okay?” Munsch called, probably just to vex Elliot.

“Fine,” she said. “Just talking, we’ll be back in a few!”

“All right,” he replied, and they heard his footsteps recede down the stairs.

Olivia’s heart still pounded. She watched Elliot button his shirt, zip his slacks. “We can’t do this again,” she said in a low, even voice.

“Nope,” Elliot replied, expertly cinching his belt with ease. “Next time, we’re going to my place.”

Olivia stared in disbelief. “Next time? In the bed you shared with your wife?”

Elliot shrugged, and Olivia knew him well enough to recognize false bravado. He was hurting badly about his marriage, and she hoped this would help take some of the pain away.

“Isn’t it just a bed? If it were anything more, she’d still be in it, wouldn’t she?” Elliot said as he took the handcuff keys from Olivia’s pocket and walked over to the door. He unlocked them and tossed both back to her. She caught them but dropped them, still off-balance. At her wary look, he smiled, opening the door with a gesture for her to enter. “Don’t worry. I’ll change the sheets.”

“We’ll see,” she said as she straightened her blouse with a tug, and preceded him into the relative darkness of the stairwell. She knew, as he probably did, that there wouldn’t be a next time. Today was a day that they needed each other, so much that they were willing to risk everything.

And that was what it meant to be partners, in a way: being whatever someone needs.


End file.
